Products which are mass produced are distributed to end users through sales and distribution channels. When the products have particular value associated with them, counterfeiters sometimes produce products which are copies of those produced by the original manufacturers. These counterfeit products are then introduced into the sales and distribution channels and end users become deceived regarding the source of the goods and/or their quality. Lost sales occur for the original manufacturer, and the end user may receive less value than what was expected. Name brand goods, certified products and copyrighted products are often the target of such counterfeiting activities.
To address the problem of counterfeiting, one prior art solution has been to attach a label containing an optical device which is difficult to reproduce, for example, a holographic image to the products to confirm their authenticity. The original manufacturer controls these labels and their content to prevent easy access to such labels by counterfeiters. Use of such an optical device is desirable in that the authentication procedure is relatively simple, for anyone may visually inspect the label and its presence indicates authenticity. Unfortunately, this approach suffers from the weakness that skilled counterfeiters, by extending substantial effort, can reproduce these labels. Once reproduction is achieved, the counterfeiter may easily introduce a multitude of counterfeit products within the sales and distribution channels. A second disadvantage to the optical device methodology is that the creation of the special labels is relatively expensive and therefore is only cost effective for certain classes of products.
In pre-paid service areas, the use of randomly generated numbers have been utilized to validate a user prior to accessing the pre-paid service. For example, pre-paid phone card access numbers generated by random numbers have been used for such purposes. The phone card number is input into a phone or other device to validate the user prior to registering a phone call. A second application involves the use of confirmation numbers as back-up identification for electronic ticketing air fares. The use of random numbers for access of such pre-paid services, however, is substantially different than the use of optical codes for authenticating mass produced goods. For example, in the pre-paid phone card application, each random number is held secret by the user of the service, therefore a theft of the phone card or its loss may allow someone to access the pre-paid service. In the electronic air fare ticketing application, neither secrecy nor duplication of the code is of great concern since the use of the random number is only for backup identification. Knowledge of the confirmation number by a third party is unlikely to cause any loss because a third party's attempt to board an airplane flight will conflict with the boarding by the valid party. Unlike the product authentication in which previously optical devices have been used, the pre-paid service using randomly generated numbers play no role in preventing or deterring large scale loss due to counterfeiting of mass-produced goods.
In another prior art method for authentication, an apparatus is used to measure a random characteristic of a card, tag or label. The random characteristic, or “fingerprint,” is read by a special reading apparatus and converted to a code which is encrypted and printed on the tag or label. The encryption ties the label to the original manufacturer of the product and the code value in turn is tied to the particular label on which it is printed since that label has the “fingerprint.” This method, although secure in authenticating single labels, introduces significant costs because the label must contain special technology for the development of the “fingerprint” and a special reader must be developed and used at the time of printing the label and when the label is subsequently field checked. These shortcomings introduce significant costs in attempting to authenticate mass produced goods. It is not necessary to prevent even single counterfeits, which this method does, since the manufacturer of mass produced goods is instead interested in deterring mass counterfeiting of his product.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,148 discloses a method of verifying the authenticity of goods at retail outlets. Each product is provided with an identification number having random and non-random portions. The identification numbers are placed on registration cards which are read and compared to a database of identification numbers to see if the numbers are valid. The patent also uses a random number and a secret code as an identification number, wherein the secret code is calculated using an one-way hash function type algorithm.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,833,795 discloses a method for verifying the authenticity of goods by providing each good with an identification number that has random and non-random portions. Authenticity of goods is determined by maintaining the identification numbers in a master list and comparing the random number on the analyzed good with the master list.
Therefore there is a need in the art for a low cost, secure way of verifying the authenticity of mass produced goods. There is also a similar need to track goods and/or detect a diversion of goods.